Sad Cypress (Hercule Poirot 22)

“I’ll dry.”

Nurse Hopkins slipped off her cuffs. She poured hot water from the kettle into the papier-mâché basin.

Elinor said idly, looking at her wrist:

“You’ve pricked yourself.”

Nurse Hopkins laughed.

“On the rose trellis at the Lodge—a thorn. I’ll get it out presently.”

The rose trellis at the Lodge… Memory poured in waves over Elinor. She and Roddy quarrelling—the Wars of the Roses. She and Roddy quarrelling—and making it up. Lovely, laughing, happy days. A sick wave of revulsion passed over her. What had she come to now? What black abyss of hate—of evil… She swayed a little as she stood.

She thought:

“I’ve been mad—quite mad.”

Nurse Hopkins was staring at her curiously.

“Downright odd, she seemed…” so ran Nurse Hopkins’ narrative later. “Talking as if she didn’t know what she was saying, and her eyes so bright and queer.”

The cups and saucers rattled in the basin. Elinor picked up an empty fish paste pot from the table and put it into the basin. As she did so she said, and marvelled at the steadiness of her voice:

“I’ve sorted out some clothes upstairs, Aunt Laura’s things. I thought, perhaps, Nurse, you could advise me where they would be useful in the village.”

Nurse Hopkins said briskly:

“I will indeed. There’s Mrs. Parkinson, and old Nellie, and that poor creature who’s

not quite all there at Ivy Cottage. Be a godsend to them.”

She and Elinor cleared up the pantry. Then they went upstairs together.

In Mrs. Welman’s room clothes were folded in neat bundles: underclothing, dresses, and certain articles of handsome clothing, velvet tea gowns, a musquash coat. The latter, Elinor explained, she thought of giving to Mrs. Bishop. Nurse Hopkins nodded assent.

She noticed that Mrs. Welman’s sables were laid on the chest of drawers.

“Going to have them remodelled for herself,” she thought to herself.

She cast a look at the big tallboy. She wondered if Elinor had found that photograph signed “Lewis,” and what she had made of it, if so.

“Funny,” she thought to herself, “the way O’Brien’s letter crossed mine. I never dreamt a thing like that could happen. Her hitting on that photo just the day I wrote to her about Mrs. Slattery.”

She helped Elinor sort through the clothing and volunteered to tie it up in separate bundles for the different families and see to their distribution herself.

She said:

“I can be getting on with that while Mary goes down to the Lodge and finishes up there. She’s only got a box of papers to go through. Where is the girl, by the way? Did she go down to the Lodge?”

Elinor said:

“I left her in the morning room….”

Nurse Hopkins said:

“She’d not be there all this time.” She glanced at her watch. “Why, it’s nearly an hour we’ve been up here!”

She bustled down the stairs. Elinor followed her.